Enter February, lets hope it drier than January

Well, January 26 was miserable on many fronts. The weather was just dull and wet, I haven’t been well and ended up with a chest infection that needed antibiotics to clear, and worst of all I haven’t been out on my bike riding the whole month. On a brighter note, I am a month into my YouTube launch: as I write this, episode 5 dropped last week. It’s been interesting trying different types of videos with varied subjects and durations, and for now I’m still in a good rhythm keeping to a once-a-week release. I am conscious that it must not impact the time I have to work on my artwork — that time is limited because I’m still working full time — and so far the channel seems to be encouraging me to pick up pieces I haven’t worked on in a while. I’m also trying not to get too fixated on numbers of views and likes, but it does feel like you need to attract eyeballs to each release to nudge the YouTube algorithm into promoting it to a wider audience. Anyway, let’s see how this develops; I still plan to stick to a weekly schedule.

Back to the artwork. I thought I had finished a new landscape in the flavour of my ‘This Britain’ series but executed in a much looser style; however, leaving a painting out on display only seems to invite a few additional ideas and small touch-ups that can be added. It is now complete and, once dry, will be varnished. I’m not yet sure whether I will get it mounted and framed — I’ll work on a few more pieces and see how they might come together as a new collection.

On the current ‘This Britain’ Number 11, I will pick up the paintbrush and start to work on it while filming the struggle I go through with my minimal planning. I also have a Darkwood portrait to finish as my submission for the Emsworth Arts Trail 26 in March. As it is the 25th anniversary of the Arts Trail we’ve been asked to incorporate some silver into our entries; I’m not certain how I’ll achieve this yet but I have a couple of ideas to explore. You can see the current stage I’ve reached with the portrait below:

The Commissar

So February is going to be a busy month, especially as it’s a short month. So I had better get my finger out and crack on….